A chart that reminds us that it's not all about us

This chart shows the proportion of the world's population that lived on under $1 per day - what is considered 'absolute' poverty.  Notice the sharpest declines correspond to the decade from 1975 to 1985 - a period that was on the whole rather miserable for the US and other rich countries - stagflation, deep recession and then a recovery that retained high-ish unemployment.  Yet the prospects for the world's poorest people were getting dramatically better. Fifteen percent of the world's population and three fifths of the world's absolute poor escaped absolute poverty in that ten year period.  In today's numbers that would be almost 1.1 billion souls.  Yet we were whining like tired children.  That just goes to show that it's not all about us.  Hell it's not even mostly about us.

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